“Ah, you don’t know!”
They had been standing on the lawn, and Knight was now seen lingering some way down a winding walk. When Elfride met him, it was with a much greater lightness of heart; things were more straightforward now. The responsibility of her fickleness seemed partly shifted from her own shoulders to her father’s. Still, there were shadows.
“Ah, could he have known how far I went with Stephen, and yet have said the same, how much happier I should be!” That was her prevailing thought.
In the afternoon the lovers went out together on horseback for an hour or two; and though not wishing to be observed, by reason of the late death of Lady Luxellian, whose funeral had taken place very privately on the previous day, they yet found it necessary to pass East Endelstow Church.
The steps to the vault, as has been stated, were on the outside of the building, immediately under the aisle wall. Being on horseback, both Knight and Elfride could overlook the shrubs which screened the churchyard.
“Look, the vault seems still to be open,” said Knight.
“Yes, it is open,” she answered.
“Who is that man close by it? The mason, I suppose?”
“Yes.”
“I wonder if it is John Smith, Stephen’s father?”
“I believe it is,” said Elfride, with apprehension.
“Ah, and can it be? I should like to inquire how his son, my truant protégé, is going on. And from your father’s description of the vault, the interior must be interesting. Suppose we go in.”
“Had we better, do you think? May not Lord Luxellian be there?”
“It is not at all likely.”
Elfride then assented, since she could do nothing else. Her heart, which at first had quailed in consternation, recovered itself when she considered the character of John Smith. A quiet unassuming man, he would be sure to act towards her as before those love passages with his son, which might have given a more pretentious mechanic airs. So without much alarm she took Knight’s arm after dismounting, and went with him between and over the graves. The master-mason recognized her as she approached, and, as usual, lifted his hat respectfully.
“I know you to be Mr. Smith, my former friend Stephen’s father,” said Knight, directly he had scanned the embrowned and ruddy features of John.
“Yes, sir, I b’lieve I be.”
“How is your son now? I have only once heard from him since he went to India. I daresay you have heard him speak of me—Mr. Knight, who became acquainted with him some years ago in Exonbury.”
“Ay, that I have. Stephen is very well, thank you, sir, and he’s in England; in fact, he’s at home. In short, sir, he’s down in the vault there, a-looking at the departed coffins.”
Elfride’s heart fluttered like a butterfly.
Knight looked amazed. “Well, that is extraordinary,” he murmured. “Did he know I was in the parish?”
“I really can’t say, sir,” said John, wishing himself out of the entanglement he rather suspected than thoroughly understood.
“Would it be considered an intrusion by the family if we went into the vault?”
“Oh, bless ye, no, sir; scores of folk have been stepping down. ’Tis left open a-purpose.”
“We will go down, Elfride.”
“I am afraid the air is close,” she said appealingly.
“Oh no, ma’am,” said John. “We white-limed the walls and arches the day ’twas opened, as we always do, and again on the morning of the funeral; the place is as sweet as a granary.
“Then I should like you to accompany me, Elfie; having originally sprung from the family too.”
“I don’t like going where death is so emphatically present. I’ll stay by the horses whilst you go in; they may get loose.”
“What nonsense! I had no idea your sentiments were so flimsily formed as to be perturbed by a few remnants of mortality; but stay out, if you are so afraid, by all means.”
“Oh no, I am not afraid; don’t say that.”
She held miserably to his arm, thinking that, perhaps, the revelation might as well come at once as ten minutes later, for Stephen would be sure to accompany his friend to his horse.
At first, the gloom of the vault, which was lighted only by a couple of candles, was too great to admit of their seeing anything distinctly; but with a further advance Knight discerned, in front of the black masses lining the walls, a young man standing, and writing in a pocketbook.
Knight said one word: “Stephen!”
Stephen Smith, not being in such absolute ignorance of Knight’s whereabouts as Knight had been of Smith’s instantly recognized his friend, and knew by rote the outlines of the fair woman standing behind him.
Stephen came forward and shook him by the hand, without speaking.
“Why have you not written, my boy?” said Knight, without in any way signifying Elfride’s presence to Stephen. To the essayist, Smith was still the country lad whom he had patronized and tended; one to whom the formal presentation of a lady betrothed to himself would have seemed incongruous and absurd.
“Why haven’t you written to me?” said Stephen.
“Ah, yes. Why haven’t I? why haven’t we? That’s always the query which we cannot clearly answer without an unsatisfactory sense of our inadequacies. However, I have not forgotten you, Smith. And now we have met; and we must meet again, and have a longer chat than this can conveniently be. I must know all you have been doing. That you have thriven, I know, and you must teach me the way.”
Elfride stood in the background. Stephen had read the position at a glance, and immediately guessed that she had never mentioned his name to Knight. His tact in avoiding catastrophes was the chief quality which made him intellectually respectable, in which quality he far transcended Knight; and he decided that a tranquil issue out of the
